


Fear

by TheClassics4



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheClassics4/pseuds/TheClassics4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumpelstiltskin's guilt is eating away at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear

Everything was worse at night. When he lay awake, alone, thinking of everything he’d ever done wrong in his life. Rumpelstiltskin pictured Bae being dragged away from him, Regina as an infant in his arms, Belle on her knees in the dungeon, Milah collapsed on the deck of a ship. The guilt ate at him from the inside, leaving him a sobbing mess. Every single night.

At least with Belle staying at the library, Rumpelstiltskin didn’t have to try and silence his tears.

Every single goddamn night. Gods, he wished he’d remembered to pick up the vodka from the market that day. Some nights it was too much and he would make his way to the bathroom and vomit into the toilet before collapsing on the ground. Tonight was a night like that. They seemed to becoming more and more frequent.

How had he ever lived as The Dark One? Everything Rumpelstiltskin had ever done had been for his son, but would Baelfire even want him? He’d left his father because he’d become a monster. Since then, he’d only spiraled out of control, wreaking havoc on everything he touched.

Belle had mostly forgiven what he’d put her through, though she hardly ever brought up their time in the Dark Castle.

But he hadn’t told her everything. She only knew what he told her. He was telling her the truth about recent events. His past, however, she knew only a select pieces of. They were the important pieces, but still very small. He’d lived hundreds of years before her, done thousands of unspeakable things.

Belle had forgiven only what he knew she would forgive.

Sometimes, he wished Belle was here. That she would find him on the bathroom floor, kneel beside him and ask him what he’d done. He could tell her how he’d murdered his wife, how he’d taken away a man’s true love, how he’d found pleasure in doing so. She would hold him and tell him it wasn’t him. It was the magic—the curse— and he was different now.

But his imagination never created reality. Belle had no reason to suspect anything was wrong with him. He wore a façade of amused neutrality, even with his true love. His smirk, his neat suit, his tools and canes. They were only decorative, hiding the broken mess beneath the surface.

He wanted more than anything to go to her, to confide in her. She wanted him to be brave, but no matter how hard Rumpelstiltskin tried, he couldn’t find a way over his cowardice to confess these things to her.

Finally, he drifted off into sleep. Tears having given him a throbbing headache, it came quickly. Dreams blurred together. When he woke, he remembered only flashes of them. The savior had been in one, Archie taking off his glasses in another, even an ogre in the last.

Rumpelstiltskin sat, leaning on the tub as he tried to stand. His hand slipped over a slick bar of soap and he tumbled into the bottom of the bathtub.

He was pathetic. Even he could see that. Though, there were no more tears that would come as he miserably looked over the side of the tub, his legs hanging over the side. His spine was beginning to ache from the position, but Rumpelstiltskin didn’t want to move. He was miserable and if he moved, he would have to get dressed, he would have to go out into the world. He would have to be Rumpelstiltskin, The Dark One. And he was just too damn tired.

“Rum?”

It was Belle’s voice at the bottom of his stairs. Panic surged through him and he tried unsuccessfully to scramble from the tub. This was not what he wanted. He was no longer in the throes of his self-pitying despair and the thought of Belle finding him like this terrified him.

“Rum!” Belle called again, closer this time.

He cursed at his leg; it weighed him down and just as he was in a position to pull himself from the tub, Belle was at the door. She peered in and her brow furrowed when she saw him.

“What are you doing in there?”

“Uh,” Rumpelstiltskin swallowed, trying to think of something he could tell her. But then he remembered his promise not to lie to her. “Nothing.”

“Did you fall?” she asked, bending to help him up.

“No,” he said quietly. Already he was shaking because he knew she would ask more. Belle was a curious woman, especially when it came to him. She would ask questions and demand answers. These questions would be the ones he dreaded.

“Then why are you in the tub? In your pajamas?”

Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t think of a response. He would have to tell her about last night. The thought already had him shaking.

“What’s wrong?” Belle asked, running a hand through his hair. Once he told her, her compassion would be gone. The look in her eyes would be ripped away and he would be without her again.

“Hey,” she cooed, pulling him into her arms. He’d started crying again. It was everything he’d ever hoped would happen, but he didn’t want it. How could he ever have wanted it?

“Your son?” she asked as she gently stroked the back of his neck.

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head, “You.”

Her hand stilled for only a second, but it was enough for him to grip her tighter. “Me? What about me?”

“I’ve done…so many bad things.”

He heard her sigh and she hugged him a little tighter before pulling back, “Is this about the queen? Or what happened to me?”

When he whimpered that it was not, she looked even more confused. “Tell me,” she pleaded, running her thumb over his cheek.

The bathroom was small and cramped, but he slumped down on the floor anyway. The mere thought of confessing everything to her made him sick. When she knelt down beside him, touching his shoulder, he could barely look at her.

He was reluctant to talk and she practically had to pry the words from him. And once they were out ‘I took her heart and I crushed it’ he stared blankly at the floor. Belle didn’t react. She didn’t take her hand from his shoulder; she didn’t move to embrace him.

After a few moments, she inhaled shakily. “Thank you for telling me.”

Rumpelstiltskin looked up at her, and she forced a smile at him. “Now, we were supposed to go to breakfast.” She left him sitting there, staring at her. He knew the look on her face. She had tried to hide it, but no matter how widely she smiled at him, it was there.

It was there as she watched him stand and face her. That look had never been there before. Not even when he’d screamed at her or when she’d first come to him. He’d seen it on others many times—never Belle. Belle, who was brave and strong and afraid of nothing.

Now, when she looked at him, she was afraid of him. Real fear. When she took his arm, it was out of fear, when she sat across from him, when she ate with him and spoke with him, and when she finally hugged him goodbye, assuring —promising him— that she would see him again, that she was going nowhere, it was out of fear.


End file.
